Lebanon’s Interior Ministry took a further step July 15 toward promoting effective and efficient programme governance with the launch of two new resources to coordinate donor support.
The Analysis, Planning and Coordination Unit and the Donor Coordination Platform launched that day will together embed evidence driven programming at the ministry. They are a culmination of more than nine months of assistance from Siren that includes the creation of new policies, systems and processes, as well as the development of a custom built web-based application.
The Resources
The APC Unit constitutes, for the first time, a resource staffed by ministry personnel that is fully dedicated to the task of ensuring a coordinated, strategic, and data-driven approach by the ministry.
It has a broad mandate but will coordinate donors and partners to ensure that resources are used efficiently and effectively to address ministerial priorities. It will enable the ministry to not only set, but also stick to clear strategic objectives. This puts the ministry in a position to establish effective governance and execute its mandate to ensure long-term stability and security in Lebanon.
The Donor Coordination Platform, a 100 percent in-house built web application, will enable the APC Unit’s work by making all relevant donor and project information accessible within a few clicks.
This allows staff to easily to oversee ministry-related funds and projects, avoid duplication and resource wastage, and effectively lead the dialogue around funding.
The platform facilitates the collection of standardised data in relation to donor programming and is linked to a powerful back-end business intelligence tool that analyses incoming data. The platform creates clear visualisations of this data that APC Unit staff use to inform their consultations with partners.
It also acts as a two-way communication tool, allowing donors to access timely and relevant information related to their programming. This includes: research and reports, ministerial strategies, and portfolio overviews that can be used to ensure that programmes are aligned with ongoing and forthcoming donor activity. News is updated regularly, and the platform streamlines the process that donors go through to initiate new projects.
Effective Governance & Coordination in Practice
The need for improved governance in the security and justice sectors is increasingly understood as a key component of effective reform programming.
Coordination is also recognised as an important component of this broader governance picture – particularly in contexts with a wide range of stakeholders and a complex security architecture.
Yet applying these principles in practice is difficult and is often deprioritised in favour of support centered on training, infrastructure or other transactional activities.
Siren finds innovative ways to make these principles a reality, combining systems-thinking, a client-centered approach and custom-built digital solutions to improve public sector governance.
Evidence-driven decision making is a prerequisite for good governance, and the donor coordination platform embeds this principle at the heart of the ministry’s work with funders.
It finally provides the ministry with the capability to collect, monitor and assess information in relation to donor programming occurring within its remit.
The platform’s cutting edge visualisation tools also help the ministry move from paper-based record keeping to live data tracking systems, leveraging the accessibility and affordability of new business intelligence technologies.
This kind of digital solution can, however, only help to enable change. Policies, systems and processes, structures, staffing and skills, and leadership must also be addressed to ensure sustainability.
Siren therefore assisted the ministry to define the terms of reference for the APC Unit; recruited competent staff; refurbished new fit-for-purpose offices for the APC Unit; and developed and refined new processes for donor and inter-ministerial coordination.
Through intensive, long-term mentoring of unit staff, Siren is building a wide range of capabilities – from data analysis and strategic planning, to programme management and communications – to ensure that the Lebanese government not only owns reform efforts in the country, but leads them.
Looking Ahead
Despite having only recently been inaugurated, the APC Unit is already producing a weekly report on municipality coordination in Lebanon, primarily focused on Covid-19 preparedness and response.
Siren’s British Policing Support Programme, which is supported by UK funding, will continue to provide ongoing mentoring to the APC Unit members as they move forward in establishing donor coordination meetings, project reporting processes, and ministerial strategies.
In keeping with Siren’s approach to developing client-centered digital solutions, BPSP staff are continually enhancing the web-based application, with input from the ministry, donors and other stakeholders. This guarantees that it stays fit-for-purpose and responsive to the needs of end users.
Opportunities to extend this approach beyond the Interior Ministry abound.
The donor coordination platform remains flexible, and can be adapted readily to other institutional needs. In addition, the capabilities required by an institution to improve coordination all coalesce around a core change management and strategic planning skill-set. Some tweaking of that institution’s mandate may, however, be required.
In Lebanon, where unprecedented economic, security, and political challenges are going to have to be met in a situation of decreased donor support, making effective use of the available resources will be paramount, and these capabilities are going to be indispensable.
